Half-Minute Hero was arguably one of the PlayStation Portable's best games. As a deconstruction of the role-playing genre, it poked fun at its peers by condensing the core experience of an 80+ hour epic down to just thir...

If you're like me, then you'll have staggered out of a pub, wandered home, and then tried to fill in the blanks but, like a favorite song of mine says, it's just the best bits that are colored in.
I can't honestly say there's...

[Disclosure: Nick Chester, who is currently employed at Harmonix, previously worked at Destructoid. As always, no relationships, personal or professional, were factored into the review.]
It's a weird time to be Harmonix. It i...

I don't recall exactly when management games became unpopular. One day we were mastering the systems of "Theme" this or "Tycoon" that, and almost certainly dabbling in the field of dungeon administration, but then suddenly we...

While fans of George R R Martin's epic fantasy saga, A Song of Ice and Fire, are used to putting up with the author's "it will be done when it's done" attitude, elsewhere in the franchise it's a lot more prolific. Hot on the ...

I've just saved the planet, and I couldn't be less enthused about it. A New Beginning is a self-styled eco-thriller with a spot of time travel and science fiction thrown in for good measure. It launched in Europe a couple of ...

A Valley Without Wind has always been a tantalizing prospect with noble ideas, held back by a troubled visual presentation. Having gone through multiple artistic shifts, the final product still looks hastily cobbled together,...

Aaru's Awakening is an unrelenting challenge of a game, which places players in the world of Lumenox, a mystical land in a precarious state of balance between four deities who rule it, Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night. Now that balance is being disrupted, as Dawn sends a faithful warrior, Aaru, to travel the domains of the other gods on a quest to remake the world.
Dark and twisted lands await.

The NES era was a special time for a lot of us. Many of the staff here at Dtoid will always have a certain attachment to the period, myself included.
Abobo's Big Adventure is a tribute to all those who grew up with the gaming gods of old. This free Flash game is quite fun and funny, definitely well worth a trip down memory lane.

One thing you can't accuse Chilean developer ACE Team of doing is ploughing the same, well trodden ground as other indie devs. Its debut hit Zeno Clash combined a surrealistic art style with first-person, melee combat, while ...

Prior to being picked up by Jagex and released to a wider audience on Steam, Ace of Spades had an alpha build that was available as a free download. While both versions carry the same name, it was the earlier Ace of Spades wi...

Time travel in fiction comes in two varieties. One is the sort of unexplained, mysterious force that you accept and don't question for the sake of entertainment, like in The Time Traveler's Wife or Back to the Future. The o...

I'll suffer through many things if the promise of a post-apocalyptic horror is on the cards. To that end, I've lived through such atrocities as I Am Omega, and once really tried to like Hardware. A game like Afterfall: I...

I had to do a double take when I heard that all these years later, Age of Empires II has a new expansion out. The Forgotten was originally an unofficial mod before its team collaborated with Skybox Labs for a commercial relea...

Pirates and Vikings have a lot of things in common. Pillaging, raiding, exploration, and adventure -- these are their shared loves. One could be forgiven for assuming that they might even be able to get along, but that is mos...

Way back through the mists of time -- 1990 to be precise -- fans of the relatively new RTS genre were treated to what is sometimes retroactively considered to be one of the world's first MOBAs, Herzog Zwei. Players commanded ...

Out of the many phrases attributed to the father of comb-overs, Julius Caesar, "Alea iacta est" (The die has been cast) is undoubtedly the most appropriate for something that feels like one of the most complicated board games...

From the creative and somewhat disturbing mind of American McGee comes the reveal for his latest title; a twisted take on the classic tale of Dorothy in OZombie. Since the beginning of May, the OZombie Facebook group has been...

I didn't get very far into Alien Rage, I'm going to admit that right off the bat. It was not, however, for the want of trying. There are parts in Alien Rage where the game decides that working properly is for losers, so it do...

Just like Alien: Isolation's last piece of content, the newest add-on again asks you to decide what's more important: a shot at leaderboard fame or safety? The two are mutually exclusive, and there's a pissed off Xenomorph t...

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs was a drastic departure from the much loved survival horror darling Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Its writer, Dan Pinchbeck, recently spoke with Kill Screen about the bizarre sequel and some things th...

Excuse the weird phrasing there, but as Frictional Games writes in its latest report on Amnesia: The Dark Descent, the number of units sold for a digitally distributed game is "actually really hard to pin down."
Excluding the...

Visual novels are cool games, but if there's a pet peeve I've developed with the genre lately, it's that most of them are PC-based. Visual Novels, dating sims, and the like are the perfect type of game to play on mobile and t...

For years, James "Angry Video Game Nerd" Rolfe has suffered the worst that retro gaming could toss at him for the sake of your amusement. Why does he do it? Is he a masochist? Does the rage that burns inside with every sudden...

I enjoy point-and-click horror games very much. They've been an obsession of mine for a few years, drawing upon my nostalgia for my first PC love, Myst, and my attraction to suspense and intrigue. I love miring through the in...

Anno 2070 took the popular strategy franchise in a surprising new direction and succeeded in offering fans something fresh but familiar. Now you can continue building your empire with some new DLC. Eden Project comes with a n...

Ubisoft and free-to-play -- words that are enough to make a great deal of people turn around and walk the other way immediately. Yep, Anno Online is Ubisoft's newest foray into the world of free-to-play, taking a storied, dee...

Anodyne is a cool little top-down dungeon crawler with an obvious problem: it isn’t Zelda.
Though I would normally feel like a jerk criticizing a small indie title for not stacking up to Nintendo’s legendary series, the game itself forces the comparison, lifting not just the basic gameplay elements of the classic 2D Zelda games, but also various art cues and enemy designs.

Don’t let the screenshots fool you: This isn’t the game you think it is. The first Anomaly was an unexpected sleeper hit that found a successful formula on flipping tower defense on its head by putting the playe...

PlayStation Plus subscribers are getting Anomaly: Warzone Earth for free this week! It's described as a action strategy tower offense game, which is kind of hard to imagine so good thing there's a trailer.
Actually, even bas...

One of the most striking things about Antichamber is how the sound design makes the world feel bigger and more lush than it really is. The sounds and visuals create a hypnotic world that fills the imagination. And now, Antich...

Apotheon is the newest game from the developers at Alientrap, the team behind a small game called Capsized. Now personally, I loved Capsized and think it was overlooked by most. It had interesting mechanics and...

Microsoft's massive Xbox Live sale kicked off yesterday and the hot deals just keep on coming. A quartet of Assassin's Creed titles joined the fray earlier today and will be available at slashed rates until March 4....

Astebreed is coming to the PS4! Sony has announced that it will be coming to their newest console, along with Revolver 360 and TorqueL. In case you aren't aware, the former two are shoot 'em ups, and the latter is a 2D platfo...

If I were the owner of a beloved franchise of films and wanted to expand that franchise into videogames, there are very few companies whom I would trust to do a license justice. And if comedy is a major component of the formu...

Baldur’s Gate II holds a pretty special place in my heart. It was easily my favorite RPG from my younger days, and to be honest not much has changed since. Classic Dungeons & Dragons gameplay combined...

Developer Beamdog has had some major issues with keeping Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition on the mobile marketplace, but as of this week, you can now find the game on Google Play.
Basically, both Baldur's Gate I and II were pu...

Electronic Arts' On the House program for Origin lets users download free games for a limited time and keep them. It is obviously a way to get the service installed on more computers, and it's EA so some people are going to c...

You may not be aware of it but EA just took a 2.7 GB dump on your hard drive. Within the latest patch for Battlefield 3 lies its first expansion Back to Karkand (B2K, brah!) Far less ambitious than the Vietnam expansions of the series’ past, B2K is an effort at mixing some old maps (all taken from Battlefield 2) with some new tech and ideas.

GamersGate is 10 years old this week and in celebration the Swedish retailer is putting select games up on sale up to 80% off instantly. On top of that there's a 10% off coupon code you can use at checkout to stack for additi...

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam is one of those rare products where if it simply works as promised -- or gets even marginally close -- it's a crowd pleaser.
DICE ran into some temporary technical issues with online multipl...

Beat Hazard Ultra is an arcade shooter that uses your own music library to create a pretty addictive experience. It's been three years since the original release of Beat Hazard on the Xbox Live Indie Game channel. So after r...

Genre blending is becoming more and more common as developers explore different gameplay styles. As with puzzle and role-playing, rhythm elements are often folded into otherwise unrelated games to various degrees.
BeatBuddy: ...

Bejeweled has been around for years and has spawned quite a few variations. Keeping things fresh, however, is not always easy. PopCap is well known for fun, entertaining games however, and Bejeweled is just another of its wil...

Awash on a beach amidst scattered boxes and waterlogged wood, Betrayer drew me into its chiaroscuro world immediately. Behind me was a blinding, blown out whiteness and an impassable expanse of sea. Ahead of me was intrigue, ...

I feel like I could have just presented the above image without context or explanation, and that would have been the entire news post. Really, any kind of commentary I could provide on this just writes itself.
Just take...

BioShock Infinite was one of the most polarizing releases in recent memory among the gaming community. While a number of critics lauded it as an apex for Irrational, many fans were left feeling underwhelmed by certain facets ...

BioShock Infinite had an interesting run, with player reception all over the board. Some loved it, some hated it, others reveled in its celebration of violence, some disapproved. It's probably going to be a long time bef...

Bit.Trip Presents Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien launched very early on in the year for just about every platform under the sun. We reviewed it, and really liked it. Not long after that, Gaijin Games announced that R...

Something's up over at BMRF.us (Black Mesa Research Facility), the website connected to the still-unfinished Half-Life remake Black Mesa: Source. On January 1, the site began looping an intriguing emergency bro...

In many ways, I'm very glad that Final Fantasy: Tactics had such a big influence on my tastes. It's an incredibly well made game and put me on a path towards playing more games of its ilk like Phantom Brave or the m...

A few weeks ago, I called Blackguards 2 "deep, unfriendly, and buggy." I had put several hours into the tactical role-playing game, but hadn't seen enough of the story to comfortably put out a review.
Fast forward to today, a...

There certainly have been a lot of creative 2D platform games releasing over the last couple of months, enough that there seems to be some genuine competition in the genre. If you're finding yourself in a position where it has become difficult to choose, allow me to make it easier.
Get Blackhole. Problem solved.

Blacklight: Retribution on the PlayStation 4 just got a new update today, and with it came the Onslaught horde mode. This new mode sees four players working together to fight off endless waves of infected creatures. You know,...

There is a trend with a lot of modern puzzle games and platformers to have hectic gameplay, and to punch you in the balls while you play. This might seem awful to some, but most gamers gladly accept this extra challenge.
The ...

[Warning: NSFW, even if censored, images following.]
"At the beginning of the 22nd Century, an anomaly began occurring in the bodies of women," so goes the tale of Boob Wars. "All the women of the world became either E Cups a...

I know, I might be the only remaining person who cares, but Borderlands (that is, the original 2009 title) is now playable online on PC again.
I recently got a few of my friends into the series via Borderlands 2, and some of ...

Almost five years ago, Anthony Burch went from being a Destructoid staff member to a Destructoid alumnus, moving on to work as a writer at Gearbox Software. On his personal Twitter account this morning, he announced that he w...

[Update: A patch released in November added the option to grind three purples. Therefore, this is not as useless of a bug as originally thought.]
Anyone that plans to hop around the moons of Pandora today might want to t...